In a wireless communication system, in order to ensure normal receiving and sending of user data, a wireless air interface bearer generally needs to be set up between a UE and a base station, and a transport bearer is set up between the base station and a gateway; meanwhile, the wireless air interface bearer of the UE corresponds to the transport bearer from the base station to the gateway one by one, and for example, an identity (ID, Identity) of the wireless air interface bearer corresponds to an ID of the transport bearer one by one.
If in the data transfer procedure, the base station setting up the wireless air interface bearer with the UE is a self-backhauling base station or layer 3 relay (Layer 3 Relay, abbreviated as L3 Relay) (for convenience of description, both the self-backhauling base station and the L3 Relay are collectively referred to as a self-backhauling base station below), the self-backhauling base station or L3 Relay can only communicate with a corresponding gateway through a relay base station. If the gateway of the self-backhauling base station is different from that of the relay base station, the gateway of the relay base station must be further switched to the gateway of the self-backhauling base station, and for example, a transport bearer solution from the self-backhauling base station to the gateway of the self-backhauling base station may specifically be as follows:
(1) Uplink Signaling and Data
Signaling and data sent by the self-backhauling base station to the gateway of the self-backhauling base station are respectively encapsulated, a packet header 1 is added to the signaling, a packet header 2 is added to the data, and after the signaling and the data are sent to the relay base station, the relay base station encapsulates the signaling and the data again, and after a layer of a packet header 3 is added to an original packet, the packet is sent to the gateway of the relay base station; after receiving the packet, the gateway of the relay base station decapsulates the packet to obtain the packet header 3, and forwards the decapsulated packet to the gateway of the self-backhauling base station, and the gateway of the self-backhauling base station decapsulates the packet to obtain the packet header 1 and the packet header 2.
(2) Downlink Signaling and Data
Signaling and data sent by the gateway of the self-backhauling base station to the self-backhauling base station are respectively encapsulated, a packet header 1 is added to the signaling, a packet header 2 is added to the data, then the signaling and the data are sent to the gateway of the relay base station, the gateway of the relay base station encapsulates the signaling and the data again, and after a layer of a packet header 3 is added, the packet is sent to the relay base station; after receiving the packet, the relay base station decapsulates the packet to obtain the packet header 3, and forwards the decapsulated packet to the self-backhauling base station, and the self-backhauling base station decapsulates the packet to obtain the packet header 1 and the packet header 2.
In a process for researching and practicing the prior art, the inventor of the present invention finds that: Two layers of encapsulation occur in the transport procedure, so the overhead is relatively high.